Rotherham child sex abuse scandal: Race as a scapegoat and the disgusting hypocrisy of the media

A report has found that 1,400 children in Rotherham were abused over a 16 year period due to the failures of local authorities to act and protect victims who came forward on numerous occasions; however behind this media facade of concern for child abuse victims and claims that race played a factor to why police and local authorities failed to act, is the stench of hypocrisy and inconsistency.

Over 1,400 children were abused in Rotherham because authorities failed to protect innocent victims according to a report by former chief of social work, Prof Alexis Jay. Police, social workers and the council blatantly ignored the cries of victims and child sexual exploitation and race has been identified as a factor to why many turned a blind eye. According to the Guardian, (Failures in Rotherham led to sexual abuse of 1,400 children:Wednesday, 27th, August: By Helen Pidd) “Council and other officials sometimes thought youth workers were exaggerating the exploitation problem. Sometimes they were afraid of being accused of racism if they talked openly about the perpetrators in the town mostly being Pakistani taxi drivers.”

Race: The scapegoat

Whilst the media, local police, the council and other authorities are implying that race played a part to why this tragedy has occurred, social workers involved in the case have suggested that this is not the case. Bea Kay, a GMB union steward, told Socialist Worker, “The response of some agencies is that these girls are ‘promiscuous’—that working class girls ask for it” (Rotherham: the real factors behind the sex abuse scandal: October 2012: By Judith Orr)

In the same report Orr highlights another story involving a gang of eight men, seven of whom were white who sexually exploited a child. This story received much less coverage from the media and the victims were portrayed as promiscuous.

It is a known factual statistic that Black and Asian people are disproportionately stopped and searched by police, yet we are led to believe that the police were afraid of being labelled racists?

In my article Race injustices in the criminal justice system set to continue for some time, I cite reliable statistics which show that Black and Asian people are more likely to be prosecuted and receive longer sentences than whites who commit the same crime. Does this sound like a system that is afraid to arrest Black or Asian criminals? The statistics provides a clear answer to this question.

The double standards of the media

The mainstream media are up in arms over this story. The Daily Mail referring to the ‘PC COWARDS’ that allowed young girls to be abused. A clever use of the term PC to imply political correctness.

Yet, the same media was silent when Operation Ore, an undercover British police operation into child sexual pornography between 1999 and 2001, implicated ministers, MPs and other respected members of the British establishment. Tony Blair, who was British Prime Minister at that time imposed a gagging order on the press due to the impending Iraq war which he felt would support if this was published.

The media has not pursued this case with any zeal nor have they printed the list of names involved in child sex pornography provided to the British police by the FBI, yet they have the audacity to call the police cowards.

When we watch the news or read newspapers we must always remember that the truth is far from the agenda of these organisations. The victims of the Rotherham child sex exploitation scandal were used by the evil perpetrators that abused them, and they are being used again by the media and the political establishment.